By Sergio Duran
Two Brazilian journalists who were arrested in Egypt last week were deported back to Brazil over the weekend, Agência Estado reports. Rádio Nacional’s Corban Costa and TV Brasil's Gilvan Rocha traveled to Egypt to cover the political crisis, but Agência Brasil reports that they didn’t manage to produce any stories due to harassment by the authorities.
On their way from the airport to the hotel, their taxi was stopped by the police and the journalists were arrested, blindfolded, and had their equipment and passports confiscated. “After they took our equipment and saw that we were journalists, they ordered us to stand against the wall. We were sure that we were going to die,” Rocha told G1. “The most difficult part was when they made us walk with our eyes blindfolded for about 15 minutes. We didn’t know what was happening and we were very afraid we would die.”
Last week, several Brazilian newspaper journalists had their hotels raided in search of camera equipment, and a TV reporter was attacked with rocks and had his camera stolen by alleged government supporters.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
